by Garry
Leech www.dissidentvoice.org
June 27, 2004First Published in
Colombia
Journal

On
June 15, guerrillas from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)
massacred 34 coca farmers in Norte de Santander. The rebels woke the victims
in the middle of the night, tied their hands and feet, and then executed
them with automatic weapons. Most U.S. mainstream media outlets immediately
broadcast the news of this brutal act. While the FARC were rightfully
condemned in the media for this slaughter of civilians, coverage of two
recent large-scale paramilitary massacres was virtually non-existent.
Following a long established pattern, the mainstream media continues to
emphasize human rights abuses by leftist guerrillas, while often ignoring
those perpetrated by right-wing paramilitaries allied with the Colombian
military.

On April 18, in the
department of La Guajira in northern Colombia, paramilitaries massacred 12
Wayuu indigenous people and “disappeared” 30 more, at least 20 of who were
children. According to Amnesty International, another 300 Wayuu fled across
the border to Venezuela. “They burned [my two sons] alive inside my pick up.
Also, they beheaded my mother and cut my nephews to pieces. They didn’t
shoot them; they tortured them so we would hear their screams, and they cut
them up alive with a chainsaw,” said one of the survivors. There was little
mention of the La Guajira massacre in the U.S. mainstream media, even though
the final tally likely totaled more than 40 victims.

Last month, paramilitaries
massacred at least 13 peasants and “disappeared” six more in the department
of Arauca in eastern Colombia. According to the Arauca Department Campesino
Community (ADUC), soldiers from the Colombian Army’s 18th Brigade and 5th
Mobile Brigade routinely collude with paramilitaries in the region. As was
the case with the La Guajira massacre, the U.S. mainstream media barely
mentioned the May 20 slaughter in Arauca.

The lack of coverage of the
two recent paramilitary massacres stands in stark contrast to the virtual
media blitzkrieg about the FARC’s massacre. The emphasis on the rebel
atrocity comes as no surprise to longtime observers of U.S. media coverage
of Colombia’s conflict. Mainstream journalists repeatedly cover issues
raised by official sources. They routinely attend press conferences held by
Colombian government, military and U.S. embassy officials. They are regular
recipients of government, military and embassy press releases and junkets,
after which they dutifully report on the topics that these officials deem to
be newsworthy.

This modus operandi is
evident in the coverage of the recent massacres. Like the media, the
administration of President Alvaro Uribe did not highlight the two
paramilitary massacres. But immediately following the FARC's massacre, Uribe
criticized Amnesty International for not condemning the rebels. Even though
Amnesty had responded by saying it does not issue condemnations before
conducting investigations, the Colombian president again attacked the human
rights group only three days after the massacre: “While [Amnesty
International], through its words and actions, wants terrorism to triumph in
Colombia, we are going to craft … the most beautiful victory: security for
the Colombian people.”

While the total number of
massacres—defined as three or more people killed at the same time in the
same place for the same reason—has diminished, large-scale slaughters appear
to be on the rise. There were 317 massacres in 2003, according to the
Permanent Committee for the Defense of Human Rights (CPDH), a Colombian
non-governmental organization. This compares to 544 the previous year.
However, most of the massacres in 2002 and 2003 were smaller in scale than
those perpetrated in recent months.

According to CPDH,
right-wing paramilitaries—the majority of who were allegedly participating
in a unilateral ceasefire and negotiations with the Uribe government—were
responsible for 70 percent of last year’s massacres, compared to 27 percent
by the guerrillas. Despite the fact that the paramilitaries are responsible
for an overwhelming percentage of Colombia’s massacres, the mainstream media
still focuses on guerrilla atrocities. Clearly, the magnitude of the FARC's
massacre made it newsworthy, but the paramilitary massacre in La Guajira—with
its corresponding forced disappearances—was on the same scale, and yet it
was virtually ignored by the media.

While atrocities by the
FARC, such as the massacre in Norte de Santander, need to be brought to the
public’s attention by the media, so do paramilitary abuses. The mainstream
media continues to shine its bright lights primarily on the issues that the
U.S. and Colombian governments want highlighted. As a result, the U.S.
public gets a distorted vision of the Colombian conflict. Furthermore, while
human rights workers tirelessly attempt to shed light on paramilitary
atrocities, President Uribe places their lives in danger by repeatedly
accusing them of being sympathetic to leftist terrorists. There is little
chance of any such accusation being leveled against U.S. mainstream media
organizations. To the contrary, their coverage routinely focuses on
guerrilla atrocities, while often deeming right-wing terrorism to be
non-newsworthy.